The Disappeared (5 page)

She
pushed the file aside, fighting against the irrational connections her mind was
already making with her discussions with Dr Allen. People vanished without
trace all the time. It was purely coincidental that this case had arrived on
her desk when it had. Technically it could also have been handled by the
Bristol coroner as Jamal was last seen in his jurisdiction. Jenny needn't take
it at all . . . but yet she knew she had no choice.

The
telephone rang in the empty outer office and was automatically diverted to the
phone on her desk. She answered in her most businesslike voice. 'Severn Vale
Coroner's office. Jenny Cooper speaking.'

'Good
morning. Andrew Kerr. New pathologist at the Vale.' He sounded chatty and
energetic. 'I've just had a look at this Jane Doe of yours. I think perhaps we
ought to meet.'

She
was buzzed into the mortuary building by one of the monosyllabic assistants - a
taciturn breed whom she'd only ever heard laughing from a distance and between
themselves - and stepped carefully over the newly mopped reception floor,
becoming aware of the sound of raised voices on the other side of the slap
doors. She pushed through to find a muscular young man wearing surgical scrubs,
who she took to be the new pathologist, doing his best to fend off a bellicose
Scotsman. Dressed in a dark suit and coat, the visitor had a threatening tone
and an aura of unpredictable menace which hit her like a minor shock wave as he
jabbed his finger at the pathologist's chest.

'Listen,
son - my client's wee girl has been gone six months and not a trace. The poor
sod's lost every hair on his head. I wouldn't be surprised if he got the cancer
if he doesn't find her soon.'

'You'll
have to come back with the police. You can't walk in here and simply demand to
see a body.'

'I'm
his lawyer for Christ's sake, his legal agent. I know the education's all to
cock these days, but they must've taught you what that means.' He pushed his
unruly, sandy hair back from his forehead revealing once attractive features
now lined and lived in.

The
pathologist set his hands on his hips and stood his ground, showing off a thick
pair of gym-pumped shoulders. 'All right, that's enough. I've told you how it
is. You've got the detective's number - call him. I've got a job to do here.'
He looked past the man to Jenny. 'Sorry, madam. How can I help you?'

Not
about to back down, the angry Scotsman said, 'What in the hell difference does
it make to you if I've got a copper holding my hand?'

Jenny
stepped forward and addressed him. 'Jenny Cooper. Severn Vale District Coroner.
The body's in my charge at the moment.' She had both men's full attention now.
'Dr Kerr?'

'Yes.'

She
turned to the visitor. 'And you are?'

'Alec
McAvoy. O'Donnagh & Drew.' He looked her up and down with startling blue
eyes that belonged to a much younger face. 'Any chance of giving this young
laddie a law lesson?'

Ignoring
the remark, she said, 'Perhaps if you could tell me exactly who you're
representing I might be able to help.'

'Client's
name's Stewart Galbraith. My firm's represented the family since God was a boy.
It was the police who told him about this body in the first place.'

'Which
police?'

'Now
you're being funny. You tried calling the cop station lately? If it's not
Bangalore it's a fuckin' robot.'

Jenny
saw Dr Kerr bristle, but she remained calm. Lawyers were paid to be awkward.
Despite his bluster, the mischief in McAvoy's eyes told her there was no
personal animosity intended.

'Have
you got a business card?'

McAvoy
grunted, fished in his coat pocket and came out with a card:

Alec
McAvoy LLB, Legal Executive, O'Donnagh & Drew, Solicitors
.
She scanned it twice, wondering why a man with a law degree was a mere legal
executive and not a qualified solicitor.

He
saw that she'd noticed.

'There's
a story behind that. I'll tell you sometime,' McAvoy said.

'Do
you mind if I give your office a call?'

'Go
ahead.'

She
reached for her phone, then thought better of it. It felt petty to question his
credentials. She knew the name of O'Donnagh & Drew from her days in
practice. They were a long-established firm chiefly known for having cornered
Bristol's market in major criminal litigation.

She
turned to Dr Kerr. 'Would you mind if we have a quick look? It won't take a
minute.'

'It's
your body, Mrs Cooper. I'll be in my office.' He turned and walked swiftly
across the corridor, pulling the door hard shut behind him.

'You're
sure he's old enough to be doing this job?' McAvoy said. 'He's hardly out of
short trousers.'

'Shall
we get this done?'

She
led the way to the refrigerator, passing half a dozen bodies parked on
trolleys, aware of McAvoy's eyes on her as he followed. He was one of those men
who didn't even try to pretend they weren't looking.

She
took a latex glove from a dispenser screwed to the wall. 'Have you got a
photograph of your client's daughter? It can sometimes be hard —’

'No
need. I've known her from a baby.'

'What's
her name?'

'Abigail.'

She
opened the fridge door - a heavy hunk of metal eight feet by four - and pulled
out the drawer. She observed McAvoy instinctively cross himself as she reached
down to pull the plastic back from the face. They both started at the sight
that met them: the face staring up with empty eye sockets.

'Dear
God,' McAvoy whispered.

Jenny
flinched and looked away. 'Sorry about that. She did have glass ones. Someone
must have removed them.'

He
leaned down for a closer examination. With her peripheral vision Jenny watched
him examining every detail of the face, then tug back the plastic a little
further to reveal the top portion of the torso.

'No.
It's not Abigail,' he said, straightening up. 'She'd a dimple in her chin and a
wee birthmark on the side of her neck. Thanks anyway.'

Jenny
nodded, hesitating to look down again and cover the face.

'Let
me,' McAvoy said, and pulled the sheet across before she could reach out a
hand. 'Nothing but dust once the soul's departed - that's what you've got to
tell yourself.' He pushed the drawer back into the cabinet. 'Another torment
the godless majority have to live with - thinking flesh and blood are all there
is.' He pulled the fridge door shut and glanced at the bodies lined up on
trolleys along the corridor. 'Leave an unbeliever down here for the night, he'd
soon be crying out for his Maker.' He flashed her a wicked smile. 'I've not
seen you before, have I?'

'No.'
She pulled off the glove and dropped it in the bin.

'New?'

'Relatively.'

'Some
job for a woman.' He studied her for a moment then nodded, as if having
satisfied his curiosity. 'Yes, I can see it now.' His smile became kinder: a
window to a gentler side of him, perhaps. 'Oh well, don't spend too much time
with these fellas. See you around.' He turned and walked away, tossing his hair
away from his eyes, hands pushed deep into his coat pockets.

She
stood and watched him until he'd gone, half-expecting him to steal something on
the way out.

Jenny
entered Dr Kerr's office to find him busy at his computer, his scrubs replaced
with a T-shirt that hugged his pecs. She guessed he was thirty or so and still
single, with plenty of time to spend on himself.

'Have
we got rid of him yet?' he said, firing off an email.

'Yes.
She wasn't the one he was looking for.'

Dr
Kerr swivelled on his chair to face her. She noticed he'd rearranged the
furniture, and replaced the shelving and carpet. The row of textbooks on the
shelf behind his desk looked new and unthumbed; next to them were a number of
Men's
Health and Muscle and Fitness
magazines.

'Pleased
to meet you, Mrs Cooper.'

He
extended his hand. She tried and failed to match his powerful grip.

'And
you. I've had just about all I can take of dealing with locums.'

'Then
you'll be glad to know I type my own post-mortem reports and like to get them
out of the way before I go home each night.'

'I
see you've been got at already.'

'No
comment,' he said, smiling.

Jenny
realized the trace of accent she'd detected in his voice was Ulster. For some
reason she found it reassuring: solid, reliable.

Dr
Kerr said, 'I noticed that your Jane Doe had been sitting around for a while,
so I had a look at her this morning.' He handed her a three-page report. 'I
wasn't sure whether it was you or the police I should speak to first, but I saw
on the file that you've opened an inquest.'

'Opened
and adjourned while I try to find out who she is.'

'Aren't
the police interested?'

'They
will be if anything incriminating turns up. Till then they're more than happy
to farm out the legwork.'

He
nodded, though his expression was one of surprise. Jenny hoped his pathology
was better than his grasp of professional politics.

'From
an initial examination it's impossible to say what killed her. Most of the
internal organs were missing - seagulls, I read.'

'Apparently
so.'

'There
was some lung tissue left, enough to give a suggestion that the bronchi were
distended . . .'

'Meaning?'

'Drowning
is a possibility, but I couldn't prove it. One thing that does interest me,
though, is two nicks in the stomach side of the lumbar vertebrae. They could
have been caused by the gulls, but equally I couldn't rule out stab wounds.'

'Is
there no way of telling?'

'Afraid
not.' He continued a little less confidently. 'Two other things. Firstly, her
teeth: no decay, no fillings, so dental records probably won't help. And,
secondly, I dissected her neck looking for evidence of strangulation. I didn't
find that, but she has an early-stage tumour on her thyroid gland. It was large
enough that she may have begun to feel it. She might have gone to the doctor
complaining of pressure on her windpipe.'

'Thyroid
cancer? What would have caused that?'

'What
causes any kind of cancer? Unless she had a dose of radiation or something it's
impossible to say.'

'Radiation?'
She remembered the Crosby family and their daughter who worked at the
decommissioned power station. 'There's a young woman missing who works at the
Maybury nuclear plant, out on the Severn.'

'Right.
I was going to say that it's the kind of tumour that's most common in Eastern
Europe, in the Chernobyl footprint. Her cheekbones have a touch of that Slavic
look.'

'The
family's arranging a DNA test. If that doesn't turn up anything we could try
something more sophisticated - geographical mineral analysis or whatever.'

'Not
on my budget, we can't.'

'We'll
see,' Jenny said, with a half-smile. 'We might persuade the police to pay for
it.'

'I
guess I could rustle up a radiometer from somewhere - there's some pretty
accurate radiological data I could match her with. If she is from Eastern
Europe, I might be able to get a rough location.'

'Anything
would be helpful.' Jenny got up from her chair. 'The sooner we ID her, the
sooner you free up your fridge space.'

'About
that: couldn't the body be moved to an undertaker's or—'

Jenny
cut in. 'You're on a permanent contract, right?'

'Yes
. . .'

'Then
you can afford to flex your muscles. If you don't start making demands first
they'll bleed you dry - you'll be stealing cutlery from the canteen to conduct
your postmortems.'

'It
feels a bit early to start rocking the boat.'

She
felt an almost maternal concern for him - not yet thirty and in charge of the
repository of the hospital's darkest secrets. 'Listen, Andrew - can I call you
that?'

'Sure.'

'They'll
give you a week, then the consultants will be on the phone trying to lean on
you to cover up their mistakes and the management will be suggesting you do
anything but record hospital infection as cause of death. Get corrupted once
and you're stuck with it for all time. Ask your predecessor.'

'Right,'
he said uncertainly. 'I'll bear it in mind.'

The
rain had passed and given way to a hard frost, which glinted on the tarmac as
Jenny drove back towards home across the vast span of the Severn Bridge. The
lights of the factories of Avonmouth to the left and Maybury to the right
reflected off the flat water on a windless night. Reaching the far side and
entering Wales, she waited for the tensions of the day to leave her as she
slipped past Chepstow and plunged into the forest. The knots loosened a little,
but somehow the sense of release wasn't as profound tonight. Meeting Mrs Jamal
and the ordeal of dealing with the Jane Doe had roused a stubborn anxiety that
refused to let her enjoy the glimpses of a crescent moon through the skeletal
trees.